


Just a Flicker

by catfishCaper



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 15:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13616319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catfishCaper/pseuds/catfishCaper
Summary: It’s not until she’s in her early teens that Marinette realizes the strange circle and flash of light on her left bicep is supposed to be a camera, and when she meets Adrien Agreste, professional model, she knows who it has to be leading her to.Meanwhile, her best friend has a spray of colorful macarons across the back of her neck, and doesn’t say anything.





	Just a Flicker

**Author's Note:**

> i have no memory of writing this, i just found it in my google drive and decided to post it. so, uh, here it is i guess?
> 
> not beta read, no real editing besides spelling and grammar

There was a very strange shape on Marinette’s arm. It was a black rectangle with a big circle in the middle, and that circle had many smaller circles inside, like the rings of a tree. Two lines went up from the top of the rectangle and faded out.

Her parents were stumped. They had no idea what it was supposed to be. When they asked doctors and specialists, everyone raved about how soulmate marks were predicting future technology, and she was a very lucky girl. But she didn’t feel lucky.

How was she supposed to find her True Love with this? She didn’t know what this thing was supposed to be, and even when she figured it out, she might have met them already. It was hopeless.

But she kept her chin up anyway, because if there was one thing her parents stressed to her, it was that love would find a way. Her mother had a perfect croissant on the opposite arm of Marinette’s mark, and her father had a rare name mark: her mother’s last name, Cheng, in Chinese. They had met by chance, and the rest was a storybook romance.

Marinette wanted something like that. So she did her research, posting on mark forums to try to figure out what it was (never posting pictures, because that was just asking for trouble).

When she was thirteen, she got a reply to an old message out of the blue. She didn’t even use that site anymore!

_ c’esalya _ : do you think it could be a camera?

It didn’t look anything like the old Polaroid her parents used during Big Family Moments. It looked a  _ little  _ like the digital camera Nino’s parents had gotten him for his last birthday. She Googled pictures of professional cameras, and gasped.

_ mari:  _ oh my gosh! i think it is!

_ c’esalya:  _ haha wow i didn’t think you’d even see this message

Marinette went to the other person’s page. They had a few sporadic posts, replying nonchalantly to posts like Marinette’s from people who had been stumped for forever. Their first post, though, was their own question.

TOPIC: My mark just looks like a bunch of circles. does anyone have a clue???

Most of the replies were people claiming they’d need photographic evidence, which c’esalya thankfully did not provide. Soulmate marks held up as proof of identity, at least in France, and just letting anyone have a photograph of it was a bad idea.

She (and when had Marinette started thinking of c’esalya as a she?) went on to say they were in a few distinct colors: green, brown, pink, and cream. They had squiggly ridges in their middles (which was something she could not properly explain, no matter how often people asked). Her mom thought they might be some kind of cookie, but c’esalya wanted specifics.

_ mari:  _ could be macarons?

A few minutes later, a reply:

_ c’esalya:  _ holy crap that was it. i asked my mom and i googled a bunch of pictures and that’s what they are! thank you so much!

_mari:_ you help me, i help you :) 

As time passed, this interaction faded from Marinette’s memory, but the knowledge of what her mark was supposed to be stayed with her. A camera! Maybe her soulmate was a photographer! And then she was the fashion designer, and together they would make a beautiful magazine where she designed lots of pretty clothes and he took pictures of all of them and they became rich and famous and in love…

Or maybe, a private investigator! He stayed out late, taking photos of people doing bad things, but he would always come home to her before the night was through because he loved her best, and she would make him hot chocolates for stakeouts, and it would be so nice…

Or perhaps…

Marinette spent more time than might have been healthy daydreaming about her soulmate. Thousands of scenarios went through her mind from the time she figured out it was a camera to the moment she met the model.

Adrien Agreste was new at school, and though they’d had a rocky start, they were able to make up and become friends. But the second she learned he was a model, her mind started racing to places more than friendly.

“A model spends all of his time in front of the camera...really, what would be a better mark to represent that? Oh my gosh!”

By this point, she had Tikki and Alya in her life to work as sounding boards for her ideas about her relationship with Adrien. Many afternoons and evenings were spent in her room talking about it with them. 

“Tikki, do you think it could be Adrien?” 

“There are many paths of fate, Marinette!” Tikki told her. “A camera makes sense for Adrien, but it could be someone else too!”

Marinette pouted. “But I want it to be Adrien.” 

“Then it really might be! No matter what, I’ll support you!” 

Alya also seemed supportive, though always a little skeptical. “Wouldn’t a better mark for a model be clothes or something? Lights? A camera can be pretty vague.”

“I know cameras have lots of uses-- _ trust me,  _ I’ve thought of pretty much all of them. But our meeting was so...dramatic! How else would fate push us together?”

Alya shrugged. “I don’t know, girl. Just keep your mind open.”

Marinette hummed, then realized something. “Wait, Alya! You’ve never told me what your mark is!”

Alya shrugged. “Wasn’t ever really relevant.”

“Uh, yeah it was! We talk about my mark literally every day, and you won’t even tell me what yours is? Alya, we have missed so many opportunities to find your True Looooooove.” Marinette drew out that last word and smiled at her friend, who wasn’t really smiling back.

“It doesn’t matter. Forget about it.” 

Marinette’s smile dropped. “Alya, what’s wrong? Do you…” She paused. “Alya, do you not have one?”

“I have a mark, okay? I just don’t want to talk about it.” 

“Why?” 

“It’s...no reason. Don’t worry about it. I just don’t.”

Marinette continued to frown, but dropped it. When Alya was ready to talk, she would.

Halfway through their second year of  lycée , when her crush on Adrien had somewhat cooled off, he decided to share something with her and Alya. Something very private, and special.

Marinette’s heart felt like it would burst. Would she finally learn what his soulmate mark was, so she could finally have the confirmation that the two of them were Meant To Be? Sure, her feelings had cooled, but they were still there, and a large part of her still stubbornly clung to the idea that they were soulmates.

Adrien caught them at the park by Marinette’s house, and sat them down on a bench with him. It was late autumn, so it was chilly out, and Adrien was wearing the scarf Marinette had made him. She decided when he told her what the mark was and they knew they were each other’s True Love, she would tell him that the scarf was from her, not his father.

“What’s the big news, Adrien?” Alya asked casually, adjusting her hat (another Marinette creation) to block the wind.

Adrien took a deep breath, and then blurted out, “I think Nino is my soulmate.”

Marinette blinked. Alya looked taken aback. 

“Nino?” Marinette asked. “Are...you sure?” 

“I know we’re just kids, but...I’ve had these headphones on my leg my whole life, and for a long time I didn’t know what they were, but they look exactly like the ones Nino wears every day. Plus, his mark is...something that relates to me, so…”

Marinette and Nino had been friends for a long time, and so she was aware of what his mark was. “Nino’s mark is an emoji that looks like a cat face. How exactly does that relate to you?”

Adrien went red. “It’s...I don’t want to talk about it. I just know it’s really, um, me. So what do you guys think? You’re pretty much my best friends aside from him, so…”

A pair of headphones. Marinette liked music, sure, but these were  _ Nino’s  _ headphones. Well, if she believed Adrien. But why would he lie? God, this was humiliating. She’d been pining after this boy for years and it was all for nothing. Based on a stupid conjecture. Her parents had lied to her--True Love wasn’t real.

Hot tears formed in her eyes and she got choked up as she told Adrien, “I really think...I really think if you think it’s Nino, because you know both, then you should tell him. You should really talk to him.”

Adrien and Alya both looked concerned. “Are you okay, Marinette? Like, are you crying?”

She wiped her eyes. “I’m fine, I’m fine! The weather is just making my...allergies act up. Seriously. Tell Nino. I don’t know what the whole cat thing means, but...well, you can explain it to him. After all, you guys might be soulmates!”

Unable to control herself any longer, she got up and sped off. She could hear Adrien and Alya calling after her, but she disappeared back into her home before either of them could catch up.

Her parents caught her on the way. “Are you crying, Marinette? What’s wrong?”

Marinette sniffled. “I just want to be alone for a little while. If Alya or Adrien or Nino come please don’t let them up to my room.”

Her parents were still worried, but let her leave, and she was grateful for that.

Apparently Alya came by to try to talk to her, but her parents didn’t let her in. Marinette just cried all night while Tikki comforted her, and helped her take down her Adrien posters, photos, and calendar.

“It’ll be all right. You said it yourself, there’s a ton of things a camera mark can mean. Now you’ll be able to keep your eyes open for whoever it really is.”

“But what if it was Adrien? What if I have an unrequited mark, and I’m gonna be alone forever?” Marinette sobbed in the dark of her room. It had to be after midnight at this point, but she was too depressed to do anything but drift in and out of fitful sleep.

“Shh, that’s nonsense! You’re a loveable person Marinette, you’re someone’s soulmate for sure! Maybe they’re closer than you think.”

Marinette’s eyebrows drew together. “What, do you have any ideas?”

“It’s not my place to say. I think you should talk about it with some of your friends,” Tikki said. She pushed the hair out of Marinette’s face, and petted her hair, whispering kind words, until Marinette finally fell asleep for the night.

Adrien cornered her before classes the next day to ask her what was wrong. “I remember Nino had a crush on you, but I didn’t think it was, you know, requited! I’m sorry I brought up something that hurt you, I didn’t know--”

Marinette shook her head. “It’s not that. Um, what I mean to say is, Nino isn’t the one I had a crush on?”

Adrien blinked. “What?”

This boy. “I’ve had a crush on you pretty much since we met. And then I thought you liked Ladybug, so...but now this. My, um, my mark is a camera, so I thought that meant you. You know, model, cameras.”

Adrien’s face got redder and redder as she spoke. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Pretty embarrassing, in retrospect! Uh, pining over someone for like three years, that is.”

“Um. Yep. I, yeah, I mean, you were right about, uh, Ladybug, but I figured out she wasn’t my soulmate from pretty early on. I mean, you can’t control who you like, but...ugh. I’m sorry, Marinette. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine!” It wasn’t, but. “It was a good wake-up call. And, last night, a good friend told me that now I can start looking for my real soulmate.”

“Alya?”

“Mm, no.” 

“Well, in any case, I’m happy you’re feeling better. I’ll talk to you later--if, if that’s okay?”

She smiled. “Yeah. I think it will be.” 

Alya was a little annoyed with her for running off and then not letting her in to talk, but she understood. “Sucks when the person you think is your soulmate is in love with someone else,” she said to Marinette when they met up for lunch in a cafe by the school.

“How would you--Alya! Do you know who your soulmate is?” 

“What? No. Shut up, I didn’t say that!” 

“You  _ implied  _ it! Enough about my drama with Adrien, that’s pretty much old news by now, who is your soulmate?”

“Okay, Marinette, I’m gonna tell you the same thing I always do when you try to talk about my soulmate: I don’t want to talk about it,” Alya said firmly.

Maybe it was because she was still secretly really upset about Adrien. Maybe something in Alya’s tone deterred her. Maybe it was the sight of an akuma tearing off down the street. But Marinette dropped the subject, and then just sort of forgot about it.

Alya, Marinette, Adrien, and Nino all wound up at different universities after  lycée. Unfortunately, as high school friends sometimes do, they grew apart. Not Adrien and Nino, as they were soulmates, and in a remarkably steady relationship, but Alya sort of stopped replying to texts about halfway through the first semester. Marinette, who talked to Adrien regularly thanks to their...extra-curriculars, was especially concerned.

“Bet she’d appreciate a visit from her favorite superhero,” Chat Noir told her one night, when they were out getting sandwiches.

“Do you actually think that, or is that Nino talking through you?”

“Nino and I  _ both  _ think you and Alya miss each other. She’s pretty much all we talk about on these things anymore. Have I heard from her? Have I seen her? Do I think she misses you? Marinette. Go talk to her.”

“Just showing up at her window as Ladybug is gonna freak her out!”

“She made a job out of stalking us for like five years, Mari. I think she’ll get over being spooked.”

 Marinette grumbled intelligibly to herself for a moment. “Yeah, okay. But I’m finishing this stupid sandwich first.”

So she finished the dumb panini (Chat was making her do this thing where they ordered for each other to try to guess what the other liked. It was dumb and her modus operandi was to order something completely normal but with one terrible thing to try to get him to stop doing it. So far it wasn’t working.) she headed over to where Alya’s dorm was. She had helped her move in! They were best friends! Why had they stopped talking? 

Alya had a single room, for some reason, which made this easier. Marinette hooked the end of her yoyo to the top of the building and then rappelled down to Alya’s window, and knocked. The light was on, so she knew her friend was awake.

The building was pretty old, old enough that the windows weren’t sealed shut, so Alya came up and opened it. “Ladybug?” she asked. Her glasses were off. It was kind of a cute look. Marinette couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her without them.

“The one and only. May I come in, Miss Cesaire?” 

“Um, I guess? Please don’t step on anything on the desk.”

Marinette swung into the room and landed neatly in the middle of the floor. Alya clapped for a few seconds. “What are you doing here?”

“A friend of yours sent me, said you haven’t been answering her messages in a while.”

“You...right, you’re friends with Marinette somehow.” Alya held her face in her hands. “Oh, God.”

“Alya, what’s going on? You can tell me. I’m a superhero, I have to keep people’s secrets.”

Instead of answering, Alya slumped down into her desk chair, and gestured for Ladybug to take the beanbag chair under her lofted bed. She sighed. “Ladybug, do you have a soulmate?”

Weird. Alya never wanted to talk about her soulmate. “I have a mark, but I don’t think I’ve met the person it belongs to yet.”

“Well, I have a mark too, and I think I know who it belongs to. I think I’ve known since we met. But, she’s never...she was totally in love with this boy for like, three years, until he told us he’d found his soulmate, and then she just never talked about it again. I don’t think she’d want me,” Alya explained miserably.

“What’s...your mark?”

“It’s a bunch of macarons, on the back of my neck.” She spun the desk chair around and held her hair up so Ladybug could see her neck.

There, on the back of Alya’s neck, was a spray of macarons in green, pink, brown, and cream. An old memory tickled at the back of Marinette’s mind, but she ignored it. “Oh, wow.”

“When I first met Marinette, she and I shared a macaron. I knew at that moment that it had to be her. Because, you know, I’ve done a lot of research, these things don’t always represent the people themselves, sometimes they have something to do with an important moment in the relationship--more often than not, the first meeting.”

Ladybug didn’t know what to say. “Oh,” she repeated.

“So yeah.” She dropped her hair, turned back around, and slapped her hands on her thighs. “Marinette is my soulmate. I’m almost certain.”

“What about...her mark?” 

“It’s a camera. I’m a journalist, and recently I’ve been moving away from the investigative side, and more toward…” She gestured to the desk. There were two cameras, multiple scattered lenses, and a stack of photography textbooks. “I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to freak her out, but now I have nothing to talk to her about. And my feelings are only getting stronger. I tried so hard, those first few years, to make it a friendship bond, but...I just can’t.”

“Um. I think you should maybe, uh, tell Marinette this stuff.” Even though she already had.

“How can I do that? Marinette is  _ so... _ well, you’re friends with her. You know. There’s no way this’ll ever work out the way I want.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Ladybug took a deep breath. “Alya, can I tell you a secret?”

Alya shrugged helplessly.

Marinette released her transformation.

“Hi,” she said to her best friend. 

“Oh. Um. Hi,” her soulmate replied. 

“Looks like we’ve both been keeping secrets,” Marinette said, after a long moment.

“I think maybe yours is a little bigger than mine,” Alya deflected. 

“But I had a better reason,” Marinette countered. 

“I guess.”  

Now Alya wouldn’t look at her.

“I actually...was going to tell you. That day when Adrien told us Nino was his soulmate, I followed you home but your parents wouldn’t let me in. I wanted to tell you then that it was okay that Adrien wasn’t your soulmate, because you had me. But then I chickened out, and now we’re here.”

“Oh, Alya.” Marinette swallowed, and stood up. “Look, this doesn’t have to change anything--”

“I know that,” Alya interrupted. “But I want it to.” 

Marinette’s breath hitched in her throat. Alya stared up at her from the chair. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event, the kind that changes the course of your history forever. No turning back from this moment.

“Okay,” said Marinette. 

“Okay?” 

“Okay. Then let it change. I want to try...whatever you want. Because you’ve gone along with what I’ve wanted this whole time, so now it’s your turn to get what you want. You want to be...girlfriends? Yeah, I can try that.” She smiled at Alya. “I’d be lying if I said….that I haven’t thought about it.”

Alya’s eyes widened behind her glasses. “S-Seriously?” She stood up from her chair. “Marinette, that’s…” She took Marinette’s hands in her own and smiled at her. “Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it.” Right about that moment, Marinette realized they were both crying a little. “Um, so, it’s kind of late, and I’m pretty tired, so I should probably, uh, head back, but we can talk about this in the morning?”

Alya nodded her head vigorously. “Yeah. Morning. I’ll text you?” 

“Yeah, text me when you’re awake, and I’ll call you.” 

“Okay.”

Marinette pulled away and went back to the beanbag chair, where Tikki was dozing. 

“Oh, hey, don’t think we’re not talking about this Ladybug thing. I have, like, ten thousand questions.”

Marinette grinned. “I know. I helped you proofread them.” 

“Shut up.” 

Marinette re-transformed and went back to Alya’s window. “Talk to you tomorrow,” she repeated, and then she threw her yoyo at the closest building and was out of there. 

And then there was tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that, and many more days that Marinette had to spend with her True Love. Because, as her parents told her, if it is Meant To Be, then surely it will.


End file.
